


put away the sword

by wanderNavi



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M, except Robin doesn’t understand the meaning of retirement, retirement on the farm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 23:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21126881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderNavi/pseuds/wanderNavi
Summary: Robin spared him a sliver of attention carved off with the flick of a wicked sharp knife, already turning back to the maps and wooden tokens as she said, “Report.”For five years Robin sent him out, her favorite champion, her favorite trump card, and for five years he came back to her, spine straight, voice steady and delivered his reports.





	put away the sword

**Author's Note:**

> “There is no way I’m the only one who wrote something for this pairing,” I mutter as I exclude more and more relationship tags. “There is no way.” 
> 
> Hello, yes, I’m back with more rare pairs. 
> 
> Title from _Les Mis_’s finale.

Donnel recognized the forming nest first, tucked into where the overhang of the roof met the house’s front wall above the door, where a flash of blue caught his eye in the golden light of the sun rising. The days weren’t so hot yet that mist rose out of the dewy fields each morning and the light breeze carried the fragrant perfume of the apple orchards just beginning to bloom. He’d have to swing by Elson’s farms in the evening and borrow a beehive.

He entered the house, carefully closing the door and called out, “Robin, ya gotta look at this.”

Plates clattered and splashed from the kitchen. A minute later, she walked over, towel in hand, asked, “Oh? What is it?”

Donnel opened the door once more and brought her outside, pointing up. “Pair a swallows makin’ a nest. Was just a matter o’ time, all considerin’ how we’re right next to the lake. That’s what they’re getting the mud from. We’ll ‘ave some great luck this year.”

She’d froze, face turned up in surprise at the clumps of mud plastered against the wood. One of the swallows looked down at them, chirped dismissively, and flew off to continue the day’s labor.

“So, yeah.” Donnel shrugged and grinned. “Careful not slammin’ the door. When the chick ‘ave hatched, the parents gone get protective and, ah, bit aggressive. But they’ll help eat insects ‘nd other stuff.”

“Good luck, huh? Can’t have enough much of that,” Robin said, a slow smile crossing her face.

Over the next few days, Robin and Donnel finished plowing and seeding the last field. She’d laughed as a flock of sparrows tittered and vied for seeds and the dogs ran yapping after the birds. The chickens learned to accept her presence and Donnel taught her how to bring the cows to the pasture. They installed the beehive with minimal yelping and stings and the mouser watched on indulgently as they weeded the vegetable garden. All the while, every morning and evening, Robin stopped for a minute or two at their front door, watching the swallows’ craft.

They hauled a table out behind the house, by the workshop where he built chairs from the lumber leftover from constructing the barn. At the end of the lengthening day, sated by dinner, they sat by the campfire; Donnel repaired and maintained their tools and Robin wrote letters by the reams.

* * *

On the days of rest, they went down to the lake to sit on the sandy banks and cast out the fishing lines. Lucian arrived earlier than them, at dawn while Robin and Donnel were still scrambling after the chickens and cows. They waved out to his small boat drifting in the middle of the lake and he saluted back amid his nest of lines that magically never tangle.

Donnel cast out his lines and Robin settled on the worn blanket, its colors fading from repeated washing and hours like this under the sun. She reads, with half an eye on the lake’s surface. Her small sounds of interest alert him when fish bite.

Fighting bronzed their faces and arms and Robin laughed uproariously at the abrupt border between tan and pale on Chrom’s arms when he’s forced into take off his gloves and shirt. In turn he squawked at how she could stand the sun and sweat in her coat. She smirked at him, turned with a snap and the purple cloth flaring. Back in their tents, Donnel snuck glances at the lines of her bracers against the back of her hands and she muttered about pots absorbing the heat of daylight.

Robin still wore her jacket, but with care now, fingers trailing above the more brittle cloth in its hood where it bore the brunt of flames hurled at her head years ago. Around the farm, at the lake, she left it behind, draped in the armoire where dirt and dust and fur and overenthusiastic hens can’t damage it further. Besides, in these times of peace, there was no need for counterhex spells and shielding charms and strength augmentation.

Sitting beside Robin at the end of the day, her writing gutting critiques, him gutting the caught fish, they discussed bringing milk and butter to the markets, eggs to sell, pests and fungi to beat back from the growing shoots. Robin reads out treaties and plots to him, simplified and more honest from the words she will hammer and craft around her aims, debating and accepting his input. “Goodness knows Ylisstol needs more down to earth sense,” she said.

* * *

Lady Fairfield was quite honored to serve Emmeryn when rebuilding the kingdom brought a lucrative demand for the hardwood from her forests and Lord Maxwell was quite pleased when she stopped the castle’s demands for tithes to pay soldiers. The mining and jeweler guilds were quite satisfied to corner Ylisse’s market without competition imported in from Chon’sin and Valm. The mills were content without Ferox’s interference. They all greatly enjoyed serving her counsel.

Then Robin brought the kingdom to two different wars, conscripted commoners back into the officer ranks, flung open the doors to trade, kicked out the incumbent powers, slammed taxes back on the minor nobles, harassed the guilds up and down the continent, and generally brought Ylisse to grand prosperity at the expense of the old ruling class’s comforts. Day in and day out, in the mornings the nobles complained to Chrom about their latest persecution and in the afternoon, Robin ripped apart their complaints and carried on managing his kingdom.

After the fifth assassination attempt, Chrom locked them all into a room with Frederick as referee until all parties reached a compromise: Robin would continue taking care of Ylisse’s broad initiatives while the nobles consoled themselves with taking care of Ylisse’s day to day affairs. Everyone was summarily dismissed from Ylisstol so Chrom could nurse his headaches. 

As the temperature rose and Robin spent more and more time glancing at the sky, searching for rain and only finding more humid, clear skies, Chrom came to visit the farm. This year Cordelia was left at the castle to manage affairs in his and Frederick’s – Exalts that bettered dragon gods still need protection details – absence. Between the two, they brought Robin several large cases of parchment, proposed laws and treaties that can’t be trusted over the mail, and she excused herself from farm duties for the three weeks stay. Donnel hired the Elson boys to make up for the deficit.

In their bedroom, Robin told Donnel, “I might need to visit the castle in the middle of the fall harvest, renewing this treaty might take longer than we hoped. Frederick just told me today about renewing tensions along the Valm continent, the weather hasn’t been favorable to their trade lately, and if the situation shifts too far there, I’ll be needed on hand.”

Donnel finished splashing water over his face, rinsed the dust off his hand, wiped his skin clean, considered, said, “We’ll help out Lucian and Elson’s farms o’er the summer sum more then. That’ll be fair trade ‘n the fall. Maybe let the townsfolk pick ‘nd buy directly from the orchard then, ‘stead of us haulin’ it over to market.”

“A fair idea,” Robin agreed and fell back onto their bed. “Still hope it won’t come to that. We’re already traveling to Ylisstol during the winter. I believe things won’t come to a head before then.”

He pressed a kiss on her cheek. “You got it.”

* * *

Neither Robin nor Donnel had nightmares from the wars. Not like Ricken who’d fell upon the lifeline of soothing teas with desperation and dedicated a whole glass paneled cabinet to the dried leaves and flowers. Not like Chrom who surfaced before the birds began their dedication to the sun, hand forever falling just short of reaching. Not like Cordelia of arrows and Virion of mobs and Lucina of choking sandstorms.

Robin and Donnel, they did what they had to do.

She would ask, “That won’t be too much for you?”

“No, sir,” Donnel would reply.

“Then I’ll see you in three days’ time,” Robin said. Not nodding, not relaxing, eyes fixed on his and unwavering.

“Yes, sir,” he said and went out of the tent to saddle his horse, gather three quivers of arrows and bolts, sharpen his swords, and turn the tide on another battlefield for her. Felling men and women left and right after three hours under the sun and two more hours left to go wasn’t what his mother wished for in his future while he was a child sprinting between the stalks of wheat over the warm dirt. But that was what he ended up with.

Sixty hours later, helping the troubadours haul barrels of humming potions and elixirs back to camp under the onslaught of a sudden storm painting everything with a thick coat of mud, Frederick pulled him aside and sent him to the command tent. Donnel hadn’t been dry since dawn and the howls from the last of the risen and enemy troops being thoroughly routed kept at least three-quarters of the camp awake, including himself. The persisting magical bombardment kept the other quarter awake. The last time he ate was in the middle of the night, sixteen hours ago, a tasteless, scrambled gruel pumped full of energizing magic that numbed his tongue all morning and made his blood buzz too loudly. The smell of stew wafted through the base’s air, promising tiny chunks of beef he’d have to chase down among the cubes of root vegetables and rice floating in watered down broth and would leave him longing for more despite the ration limits. It smelled heavenly.

Donnel passed on his last barrel, pushed back his sopping wet hair as best he could with the least amount of mud involved, and walked into the tent for the debriefing certain to take at least another two hours.

Robin spared him a sliver of attention carved off with the flick of a wicked sharp knife, already turning back to the maps and wooden tokens as she said, “Report.”

For five years Robin sent him out, her favorite champion, her favorite trump card, and for five years he came back to her, spine straight, voice steady and delivered his reports.

* * *

The height of summer gifted their garden with watermelon a plenty. When the celebration for the summer solstice rolled in, heat shimmering over the fields hungry for water, Donnel and Robin gathered the bounty of fruit and joined the town’s festivities. By now, the swallows’ young were fluttering about the nest with growing confidence each day. Soon, they’d be leaving the nest.

Ice was hauled out of the icehouse, children dashed about the square as parents sipped chilled drinks, gossiping and basking. In the square’s center, men and women gathered wood and helped lash bundles of sticks together. Donnel sliced their watermelon, traded a piece with Elson for a jar of honey, while Robin assisted with setting up the bonfire. The Alejors sang, a flock of teenage girls spun and danced, mead and spirits passed from hand to hand, lifted to laughing mouths.

Clapping and cheering, the town saluted the sun’s descent with Robin lighting the fuel on fire with a spark of magic. The fiddle and guitars gained a second wind, striking up another foot stomping tune. Donnel grabbed Robin’s hand and pulled them back into the whirling crowd of dancing and hooting. The firelight caught in her pale hair, still growing back to its former lengths. Spins shifted and lifted it off her shoulder blades.

Her long hair had always been a taunt at enemies, curling to the small of her back, as she whirled and dodged, blade flashing and magic snapping. Still, it took until almost the last year of fighting for a stray spell to land, exploding over her shoulder, crackling over her left ear, and only her coat prevented the flames from eating the skin off her face and neck. That long hair was less fortunate, and with a yelp and a roll, she yanked a knife up, the blade slicing off the burning strands, just above her scalp. The minute distraction finished, she plunged back into battle.

Lissa had cried out in dismay when Robin returned to base, another battle won, when she saw the blackened strands and the patch of scruff swept over the side of Robin’s skull. “How bad is it?” she asked and Donnel brought a mirror over, also staring at the contrast.

Silently, Robin tilted the mirror in examination, hummed and declared, “It’ll all have to come off then. There’s no fixing this otherwise.”

“Oh, surely not, Robin,” Lissa fussed and Robin shrugged, rummaging through the maps and plans on her desk for a pair of scissors.

Donnel found them first, fished out from between two cracked spell tomes, and offered, “I’ll help.”

She glanced between the blades in his hand and his face, nodded and sat down, back to him. Lissa sighed and helped direct his hands. She swept up the fallen strands and asked Robin, “Do you want to burn these too?”

“Yes,” she answered.

The bonfire lasted well into the night, though Donnel and Robin bowed out from the dancing long before the last embers crumbled away. With good food in their stomachs and sleep tugging on the hems of their cloth, they went home to the farm.

* * *

Thankfully, the western continent didn’t boil over to squabbling and dragged Robin off the farm by the time the fall harvest arrives. The days were a scramble of cutting paths through the fields and bundling away the hay before the insistent rains of autumn swept in and soaked everything to the bone. The mouser spent more days prowling through the house instead of the barn, weaving underfoot. Robin tried chastising it for neglecting its duty in the grain storage. Her attempts died a futile death against its unblinking indifference.

On one weekend, they find the lake overrun with geese and waterfowl, resting on the flight northward for the oncoming winter. There’d be no peace with the cries and calls and two hours in an attempt to relax, they packed their blanket and food and returned to the farmhouse in defeat.

Over a dinner of steamed corn, Robin scribbled out an itinerary for her annual trip to raise hell in Ylisstol. Donnel flipped through his inventory on their cellar stuff with cured meat and fish, dried fruits and vegetables, and their sales this year alongside her. He glanced up at her frown of concentration reigning over stacks of draft legislation and broken quills. “How long do ya think you’ll be at the castle this year?”

Her faced lifted to meet his and he smiled at her nibbling the feathered end of a quill in thought. “Hard to tell with the developments in the west,” she admitted. “But at least there isn’t much that needs to be done with Plegia this year.”

She set her quill down, leaned over for a kiss, promised, “I’ll try to be back before the winter holidays. It’s been too long since we could probably spend them together at home.”

“Sounds good,” he said and kissed her again.

* * *

Donnel noticed the activity in the nest first. A pail of milk in his hand, he watched a head peak out then dart back in with a peep. He smiled at the swallows and the aegis of another year of good luck and walked inside.


End file.
